Heat exchangers for vehicle systems must be lightweight, strong, reliable, inexpensive to manufacture, and must fit within confined spaces. For example, so-called “in-tank” heat exchangers for heating and/or cooling various liquids within a vehicle system must fit within the confines of a reservoir for the liquid being heated or cooled, while maximizing heat exchange with the liquid within the reservoir. Examples of liquids which may be heated and/or cooled by in-tank heat exchangers include engine oil, transmission oil, axle oil, power steering fluid, and liquid fuel.
As an example, in-tank heat exchangers for heating and/or cooling engine oil are typically located inside an oil pan which is bolted to the underside of an engine block. Oil pans typically have a shallow region and a deeper sump. In order to maximize heat transfer within this space, the heat exchanger may require a shape which is non-planar and/or non-rectangular. Manufacturing such a heat exchanger with a conventional tube and fin construction, with or without header tanks, can be expensive and difficult, at least partly due to the number of unique components required. Furthermore, the conventional tube-and-fin construction tends to be application specific and is difficult to adapt to different types and shapes of oil pans.
There remains a need for an improved construction of heat exchangers for vehicle systems which are easily adapted to various configurations, inexpensive to manufacture, reliable, and which use a minimum number of unique parts, without sacrificing simplicity, manufacturability and reliability.